Video shows photographs of Oswego in the early 1900s

Oswego, NY -- Librarian Edward Elsner, of the Oswego Public Library, created a video of glass plate photographs by Ella Wheeler, which features images of Oswego in 1900 to 1910.

The photographs have been in the library's historical archieves for 70 years. The photographs are not currently on display at the library, but they are frequently displayed.

Here is more information about Wheeler, according to the Oswego Public Library:

"Ella Merrill Crippen Wheeler was born Oct. 31, 1859 within weeks of her father John Crippen's death. Her mother, Sarah Roxana Hyde Crippen, passed away in Hastings within weeks of Ella's 7th birthday. Both are buried in Coit Cemetery on county Route 4, a couple miles before Highway 11, in Oswego County.

Crippen Creek is named after the family.

Capturing Oswego at a time when coal was king, the busy port and rail terminus recalls a time before automobiles ruled the roads. Ella came to Oswego in 1880 upon marrying resident Fred Dobbie Wheeler in Batavia.

The 1897-1898 Boyd's Oswego City Directory shows Fred D. Wheeler as city clerk and has an ad for his fire insurance business in the Second National Bank Building at East First and Bridge streets. He also dealt in the coal business and was at one time and alderman for the Third Ward.

When Ella began taking photographs, Fred and Ella Wheeler lived at 138 W. 4th St., in the house they built there. It was sold on his passing in 1904 and is now the Reynolds & McGowan Law Firm. After Fred's passing, Ella boarded at 22 W. Oneida where physician D. D. (David) O'Brien was located before leaving for San Francisco with her daughter Mabel in 1910. Mabel married Edward Seymour Walton of New Orleans, a U.S. Army Quartermaster and Captain, on April 7, 1913.

When Ella passed away in 1940, she joined Fred, their daughter Pauline, and her sister Elma in Riverside Cemetery."